Chapter 1
The two homeless men were sitting on the cobblestones in front of the World War I memorial on Fifth Avenue and 67th Street. As soon as they saw me heading toward them, they stood up.
“Zach Jordan, NYPD Red,” I said.
“We got a dead woman on the merry-go-round,” one said.
“Carousel,” the second one corrected.
His hair was matted, his unshaven face was streaked with dirt, and his ragtag clothes smelled of day-old piss. I got a strong whiff and jerked my head away.
“Am I that bad?” he said, backing off. “I don’t even smell it anymore. I’m Detective Bell. This is my partner, Detective Casey. We’ve been working Anti-Crime out of the park. A gang of kids has been beating the shit out of homeless guys just for sport, and we’re on decoy duty. Sorry about the stink, but we’ve got to smell as bad as we look.”
“Mission accomplished,” I said. “Give me a description of the victim.”
“White, middle-aged, and based on the fact that she’s dressed head to toe in one of those Tyvek jumpsuits, it looks like she’s the next victim of the Hazmat Killer.”
Not what I wanted to hear. “ID?”
“We can’t get at her. The carousel is locked up tight. She’s inside. We would never have found her except we heard the music, and we couldn’t figure out why it was playing at six thirty in the morning.”
“Lead the way,” I said.
The carousel is in the heart of Central Park, only a few tenths of a mile off Fifth, and unless a Parkie showed up in a golf cart, walking was the fastest way to get there.
“Grass is pretty wet,” Bell said, stating the obvious. “I thought NYPD Red only got called in for celebrities and muckety-mucks.”
“One of those muckety-mucks went missing Friday night, and my partner and I have been looking for her. As soon as you called in an apparent homicide, I got tapped. We work out of the One Nine, so I got here in minutes. But if this isn’t our MIA, I’m out of here, and another team will catch it.”
“Casey and I volunteer,” Bell said. “We clean up well, and if you really twist our arms, we’d even transfer to Red. Is it as cool as they say?”
Is it cool? Is playing shortstop for the New York Yankees cool? For a cop, NYPD Red is a dream job.
There are eight million people in New York City. The department’s mission is to protect and serve every one of them. But a few get more protection and better service than others. It may not sound like democracy in action, but running a city is like running a business—you cater to your best customers. In our case, that means the ones who generate revenue and attract tourists. In a nutshell, the rich and famous. If any of them are the victims of a crime, they get our full attention. And trust me, these people are used to getting plenty of attention. They’re rock stars in the worlds of finance, fashion, and publishing, and in some cases, they’re actually rock stars in the world of rock.
I answered Bell’s question. “Except for the part where I ruin a good pair of shoes tromping through the wet grass, I’d have to say it’s pretty damn cool.”
“Where’s your partner?” Bell asked.
I had no idea. “On her way,” I lied.
We were crossing Center Drive when I heard the off-pitch whistle of a calliope.
“It’s even more annoying when you get closer,” Bell said.
The closest we could get was twenty feet away. We were stopped by a twelve-foot-high accordion-fold brass gate. Behind it was a vintage carousel that attracted hundreds of thousands of parents and kids to the park every year.
It was hours before the gate would officially open, but the ride was spinning, the horses were going up and down, and the circus music was blaring.
“You can’t get in,” Casey said. “It’s locked.”
“How’d she get in?” I asked.
“Whoever put her there broke the lock,” he said. “Then they replaced it with this Kryptonite bicycle U-Lock. It’s a bitch to open.”
“They obviously didn’t want anybody to wander in and mess with their little tableau,” I said.
“We kind of figured that,” he said. “Anyway, ESU is sending somebody to cut it.”
“Not until the crime scene guys dust it for prints,” I said. “I doubt if we’ll find anything, but I don’t want it contaminated by some cowboy with an angle grinder.”
“Detective Jordan…” It was Bell. “You can get a good look at the body from here.”
I walked to where he was standing and peered through an opening in the gate.
“Here she comes,” Bell said, as though I might actually miss a dead woman in a white Tyvek jumpsuit strapped to a red, blue, green, and yellow horse.
“Damn,” I said as she rode past us.
“Is that your missing muckety-muck?” Bell asked.
“Yeah. Her name is Evelyn Parker-Steele.”
Both cops gave me a never-heard-of-her look.
“Her father is Leonard Parker,” I said. “He owns about a thousand movie theaters across the country. Her brother is Damon Parker—”
“The TV news guy?” Casey said.
“The bio I have on him says he’s a world-renowned broadcasting journalist,” I said, “but sure—I can go with TV news guy. And her husband is Jason Steele the Third, as in Steele Hotels and Casinos.”
“Holy shit,” Casey said to Bell. “We stumbled onto the First Lady of rich chicks.”
“She’s a lot more than that. She’s a high-paid political operative who is currently the campaign manager for Muriel Sykes, the woman who is running for mayor against our beloved Mayor Spellman.”
“Rich, famous, connected,” Bell said. “Six ways to Sunday, this is a case for Red. I guess we better get out of here before we blow our cover. Good luck, Detective.”
“Hang on,” I said. “My partner is running late, and I could use your help feeling out the crowd.”
Casey instinctively looked over his shoulder at the deserted park.
“They’re not here yet,” I said, “but they’ll come. The media, the gawkers, people in a hurry to get to work but who can always make time to stop and stare at a train wreck, and, if we’re lucky, the killer. Sometimes they like to come back to see how we’re reacting to their handiwork. You mind helping me out?”
The two cops looked at each other and grinned like a couple of kids who just found out school was closed for a snow day.
“Do we mind helping Red on a major homicide?” Bell said. “Are you serious? What do you want us to do?”
“Throw on some clean clothes, get rid of the smell, then hang out and keep your eyes and ears open.”
“We’ll be cleaned up in ten,” Bell said, and they took off.
The calliope music was driving me crazy, and I walked far enough away from the carousel so I could hear myself think. Then I dialed my partner, Kylie MacDonald. For the third time that morning, it went straight to voice mail.
“Damn it, Kylie,” I said. “It’s six forty-seven Monday morning. I’m seventeen minutes into a really bad week, and if I haven’t told you lately, there’s nobody I’d rather have a bad week with than you.”
Chapter 2
I finally got a text from Kylie: Running late. Be there ASAP.
Not ASAP enough, because she was still among the missing when Chuck Dryden, our crime scene investigator, let me know he was ready to give me his initial observations.
They call him Cut And Dryden because he’s not big on small talk, but he’s the most meticulous, painstaking, anal-retentive CSI guy I know, so I was happy to have him on the case.
“COD appears to be asphyxiation. TOD between one and three a.m.,” he said, rattling off his findings without any foreplay. “There is evidence that the victim’s mouth had been duct-taped, and the marks on her wrists indicate she was handcuffed or otherwise restrained.”
“Talk to me about the jumpsuit,” I said.
Dryden peered at me over rimless glasses, a small reprimand to let me know that I had jumped the gun a
nd he wasn’t ready for Q&A. He cleared his throat and went on. “The inside of the victim’s mouth is lacerated, her tongue and the roof of her mouth are bruised, some of her teeth have recently been chipped or broken, she has fresh cuts on her lips, and her jaw has been dislocated. It would appear she was tortured for several days pre-mortem. Indications are that death occurred elsewhere, and she was transported here.” He paused. “Now, did you have a question, Detective?”
“Yeah. Love that little white frock she’s wearing. Who’s her designer?”
“Tyvek coveralls,” he said, not even cracking a smile. “Manufactured by DuPont.”
“So we’re looking at the Hazmat Killer,” I said.
Dryden rolled his eyes. A different shade of reprimand. “What a God-awful name to call a killer of this caliber,” he said.
“Don’t blame me,” I said. “That’s what the tabloids are calling him.”
“Totally unimaginative journalism,” he said, shaking his head. “This is the fourth victim. All kidnapped, all dressed alike, and all bearing this oddly curious pattern of facial injuries. A few hours after the body is found, a video goes viral on the Internet where the victim confesses to a heinous crime of his or her own—and the best the New York press can come up with is the Hazmat Killer?”
I shrugged. “It’s pretty descriptive.”
“And highly inaccurate,” he said. “Technically, it’s not even a Hazmat suit. It’s a pair of hundred-dollar Tyvek coveralls. What’s more intriguing is that in the three previous cases the bodies were all scrubbed down with ammonia, which makes it almost impossible to process any of the killer’s DNA, and that the Tyvek further prevents other traceable evidence from getting on the victim. At the crime lab, we call him the Sanitizer.”
A satisfied smile crossed his face, and I was pretty sure that he was the one who came up with the catchy handle.
“So you worked the first three cases?” I asked.
Dryden nodded. “The lead detectives are Donovan and Boyle from the Five.”
“The Five?” I repeated. “Chinatown?”
“The first victim was an Asian gangbanger,” he said. “The second body turned up in the One Four, and the third—a drug dealer—was dumped in Harlem, but Donovan and Boyle caught número uno, so they’ve stayed with the case. However, I imagine that Mrs. Parker-Steele, with her blue-blooded heritage, will go directly to the top of the homicide food chain, and she’ll be turned over to the Red unit.”
“Her blood may be blue,” I said, “but her brother is famous, her husband is a billionaire, and her father is a zillionaire, so the operative color here is green. Mrs. Parker-Steele will definitely get the same five-star service in death that she was used to in life.”
“So then, I’ll be working with you and your partner…” He paused, trying to remember her name.
He was full of shit. Chuck Dryden’s brain operated like a state-of-the-art microchip. When he examined a body, he processed every detail. And when the body was accompanied by Kylie’s sparkling green eyes, flowing blond hair, and heart-melting smile, it was forever stored in his highly developed memory bank. He knew her name, and like most guys who meet Kylie, he’d probably given her a starring role in his fantasies. It happened to me eleven years ago, only in my case, Kylie and I took it beyond the fantasy stage.
Way beyond.
But now she’s Mrs. Spence Harrington, wife of a successful TV producer with a hit cop show shot right here in New York. Spence is a good guy, and we get along fine, but it gnaws at me that I get to spend fourteen hours a day chasing down bad guys with Kylie while he gets to pull the night shift.
“Her name is Kylie MacDonald,” I said, playing into Dryden’s little charade.
“Right,” he said. “So this will probably wind up in her lap. I mean yours and hers.”
Her lap? What are you thinking, Chuck?
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m pretty sure Detective MacDonald and I will be tapped to track down this maniac.”
Assuming Detective MacDonald ever shows up for work.
Chapter 3
“Take her down,” Dryden ordered as soon as his team had clicked off a few hundred pictures of Evelyn Parker-Steele in situ. As macabre as it was, I imagined that the twinkling lights and brightly colored horses would make her crime scene photos more festive than most.
They lowered the body to a tarp near the base of the carousel, and I knelt next to her to get a closer look.
“Looks like you found your missing person,” said a familiar voice.
“You mean her or you?” I said, too pissed at Kylie to look up.
Kylie MacDonald is not big on apologies. That’s because in her worldview, she’s never wrong. “Hey, I got here as soon as I could,” she said, stretching out the word could so that it sounded more like back off than I’m sorry.
Now I definitely wasn’t going to look up. “Did you happen to get a message that said we have a murder to solve?” I said, staring intently at the corpse.
“Yeah, I think you left that one about twenty-seven times.”
“Then your phone works,” I said. “So the problem must be with your dialing finger.”
“Zach, there are about a hundred rubberneckers watching us from the other side of the yellow tape. Do you really think this is the best time for me to explain why I was late? How about you just fill me in on what I missed.”
“Small update on that ‘we have a murder to solve’ message. We now have four.”
She knelt beside me.
“This is the late Evelyn Parker-Steele,” I said. “Evelyn, this is my partner, the late Kylie MacDonald.”
I glanced over so I could catch her reaction. It’s almost impossible for Kylie to look anything but beautiful, but this morning she was one hot mess. The mischief in her eyes, the sexy wiseass grin—gone, replaced by puffy eyelids and a tight-lipped frown. All the usual magic that made heads turn was now cloaked in gloom. Whatever had made her late wasn’t pretty.
I felt rotten for coming down so hard on her. “Sorry I got pissy,” I said. And just like that, I was apologizing to her. “Are you okay?”
“Better than her,” she said, examining the victim’s mangled teeth and disarticulated jaw. “This is nasty. She was alive when they did this. Were you serious about four murders? Where are the other three?”
“Dead and buried,” I said. “The previous victims of the Hazmat Killer.”
She already had latex gloves on, and she touched the Tyvek suit. “Anyone can buy one of these Hazmat outfits. How do we know it’s not a copycat?”
“Chuck Dryden worked the others, and he says the forensics on this one have the earmarks of number four.”
“He’s probably right. The carousel fits the pattern too. When Hazmat Man dumps his victims, he likes to pick a spot that makes a statement. It’s like his little touch of poetic justice.”
“So what’s the metaphor here? Parker-Steele’s life was a merry-go-round?”
She shook her head. “Horses. Evelyn grew up on them. Show jumping, dressage, all that rich-girl equestrienne shit. She and her husband have a big horse farm up in Westchester County.”
“So maybe he’s just saying, ‘Screw you and the horse you rode in on.’”
“Let’s go find him and ask. There’s no question that this is our case. If anybody fits the Red profile, she does. You think Cates is going to ask us to work the other three?”
“Can you think of any other reason why she called and said the mayor wants to see us at Gracie Mansion?”
“The mayor sent for us?” Kylie said, smiling for the first time since she showed up. “When are we meeting him?”
I looked at my watch. “Twenty minutes ago. But, hey, he’ll understand. He keeps people waiting all the time.”
“Damn,” she said. “Why didn’t you just go without me?”
“Cates is there,” I said. “If we’re both late, we can tell her we got jammed up at the crime scene, and she’ll let it slide. But if I showed u
p on my own and told her my partner was MIA, she’d find a new team in a heartbeat.”
Kylie took a few seconds to process what I’d said, and I could see that familiar look of appreciation in her eyes.
“Thanks,” she mumbled.
Knowing Kylie, that was about as close to an apology as I was going to get.
Chapter 4
The squad car Cates sent for us was parked in the bike lane on Center Drive, lights flashing.
“Oh shit,” Kylie said as we hiked across the lawn.
“What now?”
“Timmy McNumbnuts.”
“I need another clue,” I said.
“Our ride. The driver’s waiting in the car like he’s supposed to, but his partner who’s out there chatting it up with those three women is Tim McNaughton.”
“I’ve met him,” I said. “Cocky son of a bitch, but so were we at that age.”
“Zach, there’s a difference between self-confidence and being an asshole who hits on anything with tits. His picture is on the bulletin board in the ladies’ room with a circle/slash symbol over it. On the bottom somebody wrote, ‘His pickup lines have all the subtlety of a chloroform-soaked rag.’”
“You always had a way with words,” I said.
“Thank you,” she said as a hint of the missing mischief crept back into her eyes. “Somebody had to warn the newbies.”
As soon as McNaughton saw us, he turned back to the women he was yakking with. On cue, the three of them yelled out “Go, Red, go!” and pumped their fists in the air.
“You guys deserve a cheerleading squad,” he said, proud of his handiwork.
“Not at a homicide scene,” I said, hoping there were no video cameras around to capture the moment.
“Oops!” He laughed. “My bad.”
“Gracie Mansion,” I said. “Lights, hold the sirens.”
The backseat of a cop car is not designed for comfort. It’s cramped, made of hard plastic for easy cleaning of body fluids, and slung low to make it tougher for the occupants to get any leverage should they try to attack the good guys on the other side of the steel mesh cage and bulletproof glass.
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